It's been over 3 months since I've posted, way too long. Ben, Becca, and (especially) I really enjoyed the end of the summer with me being off from work until after Labor Day. Similar to the first half of August, the last half included a few trips to the farm, including at least one where we "slept 2 times" there, mostly at Ben's suggestion. Ben continued to really enjoy the pool throughout the summer up until Labor Day, the last day it was open for the season, and then a couple more times at Grandma Nita's on warm days in September. He continued to get better in the water, divng for his torpedoes or other toys and jumping off the diving board with no help from me, just his life jacket. One afternoon, we joined Lara at her neighborhood pool for a change of scenery. We all had a great time, partly because it was something new. But Ben also liked that they had a snack bar. I made the mistake of suggesting that we try jumping off of the diving board, which our pool doesn't have, but the lifeguard informed us that Ben couldn't jump off using his life jacket. He was all ready to take it off and jump completely unassisted, but with 11 ft deep water, I wasn't about to let that happen. Ben was so upset about it, crying so much. I felt so sorry for my little guy...he wanted more than anything to jump off of that diving board. He was ready to go to Grandma Nita's pool right then and there to get the chance to jump off one! Becca is really enjoying the water too, usually with the orange floatie we inherited from Henry around her chest. She sometimes resists wearing it, but once she has it on, she can be pretty independent paddling around by herself.
The month of September meant back to "school" after a month off, for both Ben and Becca. Becca fell right back into her routine in Mrs. Dawn's class. She would cry many days after being dropped off, but would cheer up after just a few minutes. Each day we get a report about how good a day she has. Ben went right into a new class when he got back, leaving Mrs Katrina and Ms Sasha after practically a full year in Preppers, and entering Preschool 1 along with the rest of his classmates. It was always so cute how Ben identified with being a "prepper", and would often refer to himself as one. This was the first time though that he wasn't in class with is best friend William, who just made the age cut for Preschool 2. I'd been thinking about looking into other schools for Ben. I wasn't totally thrilled with his teacher and the fact that he was already away from William made the decision a tad bit easier to move him to Primrose, where I'd heard really good things from another TLE family that had moved there during the summer. Ben enrolled in Primrose School right after we returned from our late September trip to Disney World (which warrants its own post entirely!). He had a great first day in his new class with Ms Slockbower and Ms Jones. The 2nd day was a rough drop off though, which the teachers weren't so surprised about after the novelty wore off. Probably within the first week, he started talking about his new friend Myles, whose table Ben was assigned to, at least for that week. His teachers said they hit it off immediately, playing together in the classroom and on the playground. Over 2 months into school at Primrose, Ben almost exclusively talks about Myles, similar to how he only talked about Willam at TLE. I'm happy that Ben has a close friend, but concerned sometimes that he appears to be so exclusive with one other boy. He mentions Lukie, Joseph, and has once mentioned Cooper, so hopefully he is also making friends with them. He claims he has no girls in his class, even telling me that Claire wasn't in his class. I know it's majority boys, but there are a few girls in there with him. Seems that he's spending all of his play time doing "boy" stuff.
Becca turns 2 in 2 weeks. It seems just a short time ago that she was turning 1, what a fast year! She's saying a limited number of words...far fewer than I think Ben was saying at that age...but then she does have Ben that may be speaking for her. She likes to say Mama, Dada, and Bay (Ben)...and can also say milk and juice.
There has been an abundance of funny things coming from Ben lately. He is so much fun to talk to and has some very cute things to say from his very limited and very literal perspective. Once when attempting to teach him his right side from his left, I pointed out which arm was his "right arm", after which he pointed to his other arm and asked "is this my wrong arm?" One afternoon while driving, I looked up in the sky and commented that "we have some rain clouds on our hands", to which he said, "no they're in the sky." He's very quick to correct me when I've mispoken in his view, one recent example is when I referred to there being dirt on the dog's clothes in the story we were reading, and he pointed out that it was really mud. Speaking of books, when reading some of this favorites, Ben still shares that he wants to "jump in the book" or "be in the picture", which I agree would be fun.
Ben has started a peculiar habit recently of changing his clothes multiple times per day, especially on weekends. I think it started with wanting to change every time he got his shirt a little bit wet, but it has progressed to just wanted to change, sometimes with no reason at all. As soon as he gets home from school, he wants to put "comfortable clothes" on, which usually consist of soft cotton shorts and a tshirt, no underwear usually. Now on the weekends, he wants to wear shorts and a tshirt around the house, and will grudgingly change into pants and long sleeved shirt to go outside. But as soon as he comes back in, he wants to put on shorts again! One Sunday morning while gathering things to go to the farm for the day, Ben packed an entired dryer load of clothes into two re-usable bags, intending to take them both to Nitas. I was able to get out of the house with just one them!
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